Why Adult Education?

Whether one appreciates it or not, to live is to learn on a daily basis. Unless you simply repeat what you have always done, day in and day out, you are encountering at least slightly new situations which require you to think and lean in new and possibly challenging ways. Nothing is quite the same as it was decades ago, whether it be grocery shopping, driving a car, going to the doctor, or making career decisions, financial plans or political choices. The world has changed, and you and I must change with it!

Adult education is based on the idea that there is much more change in life than might meet the eye. Among the most successful people around are those who embrace life conscientiously, learn constantly, and wrestle with life’s challenges and opportunities with an intelligent and thoughtful enthusiasm. In other words, those who “make good sense a way of life.” Some individuals have a natural curiosity and interest in ideas and things new. They enjoy learning and are easily comfortable, even happy, with change and growth. Others, however, seem to learn, grow and change only by being sort of “dragged through” life. They tend to have less of an appreciation of the somewhat exciting dynamics that growth and change present. Theoretically, adult education is good for everyone. But, only those who relish life will likely enjoy it.

» Read more: Why Adult Education?

Related posts

Tags:

Uncertainty and monetary policy rules in the United States

“Uncertainty is not just an important feature of the monetary policy landscape; it is the defining characteristic of that landscape” (Greenspan 2003).

Uncertainty is a central issue in monetary policy, as the quote from Alan Greenspan above illustrates. Empirical models, however, rarely take account of this, effectively assuming that policymakers ignore uncertainty. The evident focus of policymakers on uncertainty suggests that this assumption is invalid and therefore that empirical models of monetary policy must account for uncertainty. This article considers the effects of uncertainty about the true state of the economy on monetary policy, estimating a monetary policy rule that allows for this.

Our empirical model combines elements of Svensson’s (1997) model of inflation forecast targeting with models drawn from the theoretical literature on optimal monetary policy when there is uncertainty about the true state of the economy, most prominently Svensson and Woodford (2003, 2004) and Swanson (2004). In existing models of monetary policy under certainty, monetary policy affects inflation and the output gap directly, so it is optimal for policymakers to use these variables in forming monetary policy. This is the basis for the Taylor rule (Taylor 1993) model of monetary policy and its subsequent refinements (e.g., Woodford 2003).

» Read more: Uncertainty and monetary policy rules in the United States

Related posts

Tags:

Does monetary policy have asymmetric effects on stock returns

IT HAS BEEN OF GREAT interest to both macroeconomists and financial economists of whether monetary policy affects stock returns. A number of studies have empirically investigated the effects of monetary policy on stock returns. Using money aggregate data as a measure of money supply, some empirical studies agree that stock returns lag behind changes in monetary policy; for instance, see Keran (1971), Homa and Jaffee (1971), and Hamburner and Kochin (1972). In contrast, Cooper (1974), Pesando (1974), Rozeff (1974), and Rogalski and Vinso (1977) show that there is no significant forecasting power of past changes in money. Ever since the seminal paper by Bernanke and Blinder (1992), the Federal funds rate has been the most widely used measure of monetary policy. As such, the relationship between monetary policy and stock returns has been reexamined by using the interest rate instrument in the financial literature. Thorbecke (1997) and Patelis (1997) demonstrate that shifts in monetary policy help to explain U.S. stock returns. Conover, Jensen, and Johnson (1999) show that foreign stock returns generally react both to local and U.S. monetary policy.

Two important contributions to the literature on the effects of monetary policy on the stock market have been made. The first one emphasizes the roles of financial markets’ expectations about the future course of monetary policy. Bernanke and Kuttner (2003) extract unanticipated monetary policy from Federal funds futures and find that monetary policy surprises appear to have a significant effect on equity prices through changes in the equity premium. The second focus is on the prospect of endogeneity. Rigobon and Sack (2003) show that the causality between interest rates and stock prices may run in both directions. After accounting for this endogeneity, they find a significant monetary policy response to the stock market.

» Read more: Does monetary policy have asymmetric effects on stock returns

Related posts

Tags: